The manticore myth was of Persian origin, where its name was "man-eater" (from early Middle Persian مارتیا martya "man" (as in human) and خوار xwar- "to eat"). The English term "manticore" was borrowed from Latin mantichora, itself borrowed from Greek mantikhoras—an erroneous pronunciation of the original Persian name. It passed into European folklore first through a remark by Ctesias, a Greek physician at the Persian court of King Artaxerxes IIin the fourth century BC, in his notes on India ("Indika"), whichcirculated among Greek writers on natural history but have notsurvived. The Romanised Greek Pausanias, in his Description of Greece, recalled strange animals he had seen at Rome and commented,

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The beast described by Ctesias in his Indian history, which he says is called martichorasby the Indians and "man-eater" by the Greeks, I am inclined to think isthe tiger. But that it has three rows of teeth along each jaw andspikes at the tip of its tail with which it defends itself at closequarters, while it hurls them like an archer's arrows at more distantenemies; all this is, I think, a false story that the Indians pass onfrom one to another owing to their excessive dread of the beast. (Description, xxi, 5)

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Pliny the Elder did not share Pausanias' skepticism. He followed Aristotle's natural history by including the martichoras—mistranscribed as manticorus in his copy of Aristotle and thus passing into European languages—among his descriptions of animals in Naturalis Historia, c. 77 AD.Later, in The Life of Apollonius of Tyana Greek writer Flavius Philostratus (c. 170-247) wrote:

And inasmuch as thefollowing conversation also has been recorded by Damis as having beenheld upon this occasion with regard to the mythological animals andfountains and men met with in India, I must not leave it out, for thereis much to be gained by neither believing nor yet disbelievingeverything. Accordingly Apollonius asked the question, whether therewas there an animal called the man-eater (martichoras); andIarchas replied: "And what have you heard about the make of thisanimal ? For it is probable that there is some account given of itsshape." "There are," replied Apollonius, "tall stories current which Icannot believe; for they say that the creature has four feet, and thathis head resembles that of a man, but that in size it is comparable toa lion; while the tail of this animal puts out hairs a cubit long andsharp as thorns, which it shoots like arrows at those who hunt it."[1]

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Pliny's book was widely enjoyed and uncritically believed throughthe European Middle Ages, during which the manticore was sometimesillustrated in bestiaries. The manticore made a late appearance inheraldry, during the 16th century, and it influenced some Mannerist representations, as in Bronzino's allegory The Exposure of Luxury, (National Gallery, London)[2]— but more often in the decorative schemes called "grotteschi"— of the sin of Fraud, conceived as a monstrous chimera with a beautiful woman's face, and in this way it passed by means of Cesare Ripa's Iconologia into the seventeenth and eighteenth century French conception of a sphinx.A manticore features as medieval sixteenth century graffiti on the wall of North Cerney church in Gloucestershire; it was seen as an unholy hybrid of the zodiacal signs Leo, Scorpio and Aquarius[3][edit] In modern fiction

Canadian writer Robertson Davies wrote a novel entitled The Manticore, published in 1972. It is the second volume of his "Deptford trilogy," which begins with Fifth Business and concludes with World of Wonders. The manticore figures into protagonist David's psychoanalysis under Jungiananalyst Dr. Johanna Von Haller. Interpreted as a beast with a humanface, or as part beast part human, David's dream of the manticore isreflective of himself and the roles he plays interacting with otherpeople and society.[4] The manticore is also the creature that defeats Tarkus in the Emerson, Lake & Palmer opera. It was also in Rick Riordan's The Titan's Curse, the third book in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians Saga. Power Rangers: Mystic Force also has a Megazord called the Manticore Megazord, although that is not an actual manticore. J. K. Rowling references the manticore in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban when Harry, Ron, and Hermione are searching for cases of maurading beasts to help Buckbeak the hippogriff. A manticore is an essential plot device in Piers Anthony's first Xanth novel, A Spell for Chameleon(and appears on the original paperback's cover). There is a Manticorein the Warhammer tabletop battle game; however, it does not have ahuman face, instead possessing a leonine body, the wings of a dragonand a scorpion's tail. It is primarily associated with the Dark Elves, as many of their generals ride into battle atop these beasts. Manticores appear as a faery species in the Spiderwick universe, appearing as human-faced cougar-like creatures that eat roadkill in Arthur Spiderwick's Field Guide and in The Nixie's Song. In the webcomic Penny Arcade, the character Tycho Brahe knows near everything about manticores[5].In The Fantastic Chronicles of England (2010 - 2012), manticores appearin book # 1, book # 4, and book # 5, they potrayed as evil beasts thatfollow the orders of Salvatore, they have the head of a cat, a cheetah, or a tiger and the body of either a scorpion, a mantis, or a wasp.